Wawa expansion into C. Fla. to create hundreds of jobs

Wawa Inc., a fuel station/convenience store chain that offers fresh made-to-order sandwiches and high-quality coffee as well as convenience items, charged into Central Florida in summer 2011 with plans for 100 stores between Tampa and Orlando.

The scope of this plan made it one of Orlando Business Journal’s Best Real Estate Deals in the category of new retail development announced in Central Florida between June 2011 and July 2012.

About a dozen deals, mostly land leases, were signed since the Pennsylvania-based fuel-and-convenience retailer announced plans to enter the Orlando market. One of the first Central Florida sites is a 5,600-square-foot store near SeaWorld Orlando that opened on July 18. Four more are planned to open by Aug. 18, and a sixth store at South Orange Blossom Trail and Donegan Avenue in Kissimmee will open by year’s end.

Each store hires about 35 workers with pay starting at minimum wage. Wawa still needs local store managers, area managers, regional managers and marketing representatives. Along with these stores, there is a distribution center in the works. It will take about five years to build all of these Central Florida stores.

Other winners in Orlando Business Journal’s Best Real Estate Deals of 2011-2012 include:

• New industrial development: Publix Super Markets Inc.’s shelved plans to build a 1 million-square-foot refrigerated distribution center in southeast Orlando are back on track. The grocery retailer in July 2009 bought 120 acres of land just north of Orlando International Airport for $13.5 million, but plans for the industrial facility were halted back then due to the economic downturn. Publix brought the $188.5 million project back in late 2011 after getting $3.8 million in incentives from the city of Orlando, including a brownfield redevelopment grant that would require the chain to meet staffing and other contractual objectives before receiving tax rebates. The 90-foot-tall facility should be finished in third-quarter 2014 and is expected to create 156 new jobs in the first three years.

• New office development: Florida Hospital soon will have a $29 million, eight-story, 90,000-square-foot mixed-use administration building next to a SunRail stop at its main campus near downtown Orlando. It will have 73,000 square feet of office space and 17,000 square feet of retail space, which will include a bagel or coffee shop, a full-service restaurant, dry cleaners and a pick-up-and-go dinner location. The hospital expects to break ground at East Rollins Street and Alden Road in November as part of a 13-month construction period. The firm Little is handling the design.

• New hospitality development: Ustler Development Group Inc. plans to build a $21 million, eight-story, 135-room hotel that could create 121 permanent hotel jobs and an estimated 600 temporary construction jobs. It will have 4,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and restaurant space and a parking garage. It will be built at 672 N. Orange Ave. near State Road 50. Craig Ustler, owner of Ustler Development Group Inc., confirmed he is talking with several hotel brands but declines to name them. Ustler Development Group also is working on the 68-acre, multimillion-dollar Creative Village project downtown.